Part 1 - Patricia Churchland at the Beyond Belief Conference

Patricia Churchland is the chair of the University of California, San Diego Philosophy Department. Her recent research focuses mainly on neuroethics and attempts to understand choice, responsibility and the basis of moral norms in terms of brain function, evolution and brain-culture interactions.

This talk took place at the "Beyond Belief" conference in 2006. Her talk deals with neuroethics, abductive reasoning, and the Is-Ought gap.

This clip is part 1 of 2.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Neuroscience
• Neuroethics
• Neurophilosophy
• Religion
• Atheism
• Richard
• Dawkins
• Sam
• Harris
• Daniel
• Dennett

[jfosterdyess]

Is it just me or was Neil DeGrasse Tyson nodding off?

[LennyBound]

He's just so focused it appears that way. :-)

...or he's nodding off.

[DeimosSaturn]

wtf? A neurologist talking about ethics? No...we have to understand the ramifications of new discoveries and new technology in their long run and determine how to minimize destruction of the environment and general liberty and rights of the most possible human beings. That's it! Morality doesn't even need to be mentioned.

[LennyBound]

Thanks for being the first to post. I just started posting videos yesterday, and I'm glad to see people are actually interested in them. :-)

[LennyBound]

I also fail to see how finding a neural correlate to morality or behavior leads to a lack of caring concerning environmental degradation or individual liberties. The development of a mature neuroethics doesn't entail the elimination of moral language or actions; it simply will explain them to a greater degree at the neurological level.

[gyniest]

@DeimosSaturn I share your moral ideas, for one. There are obviously different ideas (and, on a philosophical level, differences concerning meta-ethics) about morality and ethics around, but I don't think that every single individual has completely different ideas either. There are some commonly held ones. And there's neurological evidence that moral thinking is due, in part, to the way our brains are structured. Whatever role nature or nurture play, moral intuitions themselves are natural.

[DeimosSaturn]

@gyniest Everyone's idea of morality and ethics are different. Mine as based on the simple premise that sentient beings grant one another (through an unwritten and unspoken contract) the writ of habeas corpus. Everything else beyond that is merely peripheral. From that simple premise, we can know to preserve the earth's resources, control the dumping of toxic waste, and minimize man's footprint to insure the next generation can perpetuate the species.

[gyniest]

@DeimosSaturn Are ethics and morality unrelated to the issue of a "worthwhile" life?

[robotaholic]

well then neil sucked

[DeimosSaturn]

It's not an ethical maxim. It's a simple reduction that increases my personal odds of worthwhile long life. Ethics does not need to enter into it. Morality neither. This is a textbook case of making things more complicated or more wishy washy than they need to be.

[DeimosSaturn]

You fail to see because you have a sentimental, almost religious, affinity for mother earth. We need earth to survive. I need other humans to survive. That's what it boils down to without all the sentimental trappings of mother earth and togetherness and the rest of that hippy bullshit.